Colin Teague
The warning was deafening. Acrylic coffin-shaped crawled out from under the covers, looked for the stop button and soon found my Apple Watch. I slapped the device on my wrist before I washed my face, brushed my teeth, or checked my phone. If I don’t start tracking soon, I won’t get credit for the calories I burned or the minutes I stood—the primary metrics tracked by Apple’s signature Close Loop feature.
It was 6:02 AM, and nothing else mattered. My watch prompted me on my wrist as I got up from my bed to the kitchen to turn on the tea kettle, and back to my bedroom to get dressed for the first day’s exercise: vigorous yoga. I threw my digital companion aside while in the shower, but it snapped back into position before the water stopped dripping from the faucet. Every step counted, even the one that paced inside my apartment.
Soon, my partner and I walked out the door and boarded the train. We jumped a few stops early to walk a mile to the office. By 9 a.m., my watch informed me that the exercise loop was closed. The ring was twisted clockwise in a fiery green swirl and congratulated me on the achievement with this pop-up message:
You’ve hit your workout goal, Julia – and the day has just begun!
Millions of Americans strive for perfection by measuring themselves. A 2019 Gallup survey found that 19 percent of Americans — at the time, roughly 62.4 million people — were using a fitness tracker, while 15 percent had done so in the past. 19 percent of the country’s population said they’ve been tracking their fitness through an app. (Gallup said 10 percent were doing both.)
The amount of steps you take, the number of hours you sleep, your heart rate – it’s all data, all the information to tell you whether you’re the same as you’ve always been or whether your body is changing.
Fitness trackers like my Apple Watch are the ones that generate the data, and they each have their own gimmicks. Some have simple scales, like a pedometer that clips to your waistband, while others — like Oura, Garmins, Fitbits, and Apple Watches — provide a more accurate look at someone’s physiology.
Quantification enthusiasts stress that paying attention to individual health data is how nirvana is achieved. And these metrics Could you Be powerful tools. For example, if someone has a chronic condition such as migraine, they can track their sleep cycles to see that they can avoid headaches when they have, say, nine and a half hours of sleep versus seven hours normally.
This is the best scenario. mine was not that. I became obsessed with my self-esteem. I thought that if I could push my own health metrics, that level of improvement would flow into the rest of my life, which I felt was inadequate at the time. I was always anxious, teetering on the edge of another bout of depression when I changed my job. It didn’t help that many health issues kept me in and out of the hospital that year, which only added to my anxiety about my body and safety. It all made me feel as if I wasn’t good enough. So, if my body is optimal, I thought, maybe everything else is.
Developing a healthy relationship with fitness is vital for anyone looking to enhance their overall physical and mental well-being. But just because it’s vital doesn’t mean it’s easy.
“When people’s mindset changes from viewing fitness as a healthy way of life to viewing fitness as an absolute necessity with no room for adjustments, there are both physical and emotional consequences,” said Michelle Kerolis of Northwestern University, an expert in sports psychology and counseling. By email. “Sometimes people can become overly obsessed with scales, and that can exacerbate certain triggers for developing an unhealthy relationship with fitness.”
this path. I first wore the Apple Watch when losing weight was my base price. I’ve been captivated by notifications prompting me to set movement goals, reminders to stand up and badges I’ve earned for hitting milestones, like my first strength workout or finishing my loops. Constant reminders brought me to how well I moved my body and made me painfully aware of any shortcomings. If my Move episode doesn’t close by 6 PM, the watch will give me a boost.
You can still do it. 165 calories and you’ll shut down the loop, Julia.
I spent many nights digging deep into the Health app on the iPhone, wondering how I could use this data to be perfect. Whatever the meaning of “perfection”. For me, it was achieving my ideal body type by getting more active, closing my loops every day, bringing all my health metrics into “perfect” areas and using this version of myself to improve other areas of life that I thought were lacking – primarily my career. While I was browsing through my health metrics, I wondered if it was improving my voice or not2 Max will improve my energy, which will allow me to be more productive, which will help me further my career goals.
Towards the end of my first month with the clock, I was intrigued by the close-of-loop overview for this month. I loved how seamless it looked when the episodes closed each day. This means that I have hit a streak.
Great job closing all three episodes yesterday. Do it again today.
That same month, I closed all my episodes for 30 days. The watch wanted me to continue.
August Challenge: Julia, you’re in the middle of the month. Burn another 8000 calories to get this reward.
And I wanted to keep striving for that level of perfection.
Seeking refuge through physical fitness makes sense. Scientific studies show that exercise helps relieve symptoms of depression and anxiety, improves cardiovascular health, and relieves pain associated with some chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. One study, in people who only exercised for a long time on weekends rather than exercising most days of the week, found that even those who exercised on the weekend saw significant improvements in their health.
Fitness trackers can, of course, help people feel motivated to get out and sweat. “Behavioural changes can be associated with some fun aspects of fitness trackers — like emails of congratulations when milestones have been reached like mileage or exercise for a specific amount of time,” Kerolis said.
Rewarded for completing a task Do I feel good, especially when it’s a game. These devices use goals, rewards, challenges to overcome, continuous feedback with hourly alerts that encourage the wearer to move, and a social component so that users can compare their metrics with those of others or compete against them. All this can be very fun.
But sometimes it can be dangerous. In a 2019 study looking at people’s daily interactions with activity trackers, 210 wearers were surveyed to determine how fitness trackers affected their motivation for physical activity. The researchers found that motivation is reduced when the usual wearer is not using their tracker. After taking into account other factors such as the wearer’s personality and affinity with technology, they noticed that these dependency levels were higher among participants who were only working toward a goal compared to those who exercised because they enjoyed the activity. And fitness trackers have been incredibly integrated into the lives of many Americans.
“Never before have device makers and my child been so closely involved in shaping everyday life,” researchers Dorthe Brogård Kristensen and Minna Ruckenstein wrote in a 2018 study that examined how fitness behaviors evolve in tandem with tracking technology. “[N]not only in urging people to measure themselves but also in returning those measurements to them in order to make the measures accountable to themselves.”
The results of both studies are emblematic of Kerulis’ concerns about self-measurement.
“When people become more focused on the scales and not the fitness process, they can reduce their awareness of what their bodies are feeling, which is a very important indicator of exercise,” she said.
Phil Reed, a professor of psychology at Swansea University, agrees that obsessive tracking can be harmful, especially if you’re already a somewhat idealistic person who doesn’t think you’re where you should be, physically, mentally, or in your career. You’ll be prone to doing things that reduce perfectionism anxiety,” Reed, who also writes “Digital World, Real World,” told Psychology Today.
Perfectionism, which is increasing among young people, makes those who suffer from it vulnerable to anxiety-driven behaviors. In some cases, like mine, data can become an extension of how someone understands themselves and can drive their need to get the results they’re looking for. And if these statements, the accuracy of which varies by scale and device, do not fit into the optimal ranges, they may lead to more negative self-talk and guilt—or worse, past fatigue with one’s human preference.
As I dissected my past relationship with fitness for writing this article, I thought about the price of what Celeste Headley, author of Do Nothing: How to Get Rid of Overwork, Overwork, and Ignore, called her “artificial goals” when interviewing her. The lack of a fitness standard quickly made me think I was lazy or unmotivated, which inevitably associates shame with shame despite how much I love the feeling of moving my body. As the health and wellness landscape becomes more and more digital, it is hard to imagine that these costs would only increase if people figured out how to use fitness devices in an obsessive way.
All of my interviews and research suggest that fitness data must be interpreted individually. It is useless to compare yourself to another human being whose body is different from yours. However, Kerulis added that we must also bear in mind that our bodies change daily. Any questions about scales are best handled by a doctor who understands your health history or a fitness expert who understands that every body is unique.
Once the pandemic hit, I had to come to terms with this reality. In the closed state, I couldn’t exercise enough to close all of my loops. I realized that my relationship with fitness and tracking was very unhealthy – a realization that forced me to reconsider how I use technology moving forward. You need to build a healthy sharing system. I had device-free days that gave me space for constant reminders and cut off as many notifications as possible. I left my watch at home for the long walk I took every Sunday. But more importantly, I researched why I felt the need to immerse myself in data for a start. I was chasing the pride associated with running a little faster and raising my health – milestones I thought would make me perfect.
“Usually there is something behind the behavior that these devices claim to measure. The more attention we focus on the measurement, the less we see the really important question of why,” Reed said. “And without addressing that, you’ll never be happy.”
